Family life

I told my family I wanted an old-fashioned "at home" instead of the usual church hall. My seven children have all grown up and left home, but when they started turning up with their families and friends, the house was full, just like the old days, with the phone ringing constantly and the kettle never cool. They set to, erecting pagodas in the garden with fairy lights and jam jars with nightlights to hang from the trees. A day-long music compilation was made by one daughter and others cooked and shopped and one dug over and planted a flower bed.

From mid afternoon the guests began to fill the garden. The children played for hours, using a box to make a boat, a shop and a garage.

When evening came, the effect was magical as the garden was lit by twinkling lights and music floated through the kitchen window and everyone gravitated outside. We talked and sang and danced and laughed until the early hours and then gradually disappeared to sleep on every available bed or floor.

The next day we had another party with the leftovers. My "at home" lasted three whole days. Finally, my oldest son sent the following text: "Your birthday was magical Mum. I loved seeing everyone loads, I love you." Somehow I can't bring myself to erase it. I want to hang on to it like the memory of my perfect day. Shirley Harrington

Snapshot: shared joke, Botswana, 1974

When we were living in Botswana with our two young children in the mid-70s, we had a half-share in a dilapidated Land Rover. Luckily for us, the owner of the other half understood such vehicles and enjoyed messing about underneath it. When in working order, it gave us the freedom to explore the arid plains of northern Botswana, including the Chobe game reserve, which then saw few tourists. With lions around, we chose to sleep in the cramped confines of the vehicle, rather than in a tent.

It was exciting for two children, aged six and eight, to see so many large mammals in their natural surroundings. But there were many miles of dusty tracks with little to see apart from endless sand and thorn bushes. My daughter still remembers how, in the heat, her bare legs stuck to the cracked, shiny seats. But they were resourceful kids, able to create their own amusements during the boring bits. I am reminded of this when I look at a photo of them eating their breakfast behind the Land Rover. It captures the conspiratorial look that would creep over their faces when they were sharing a joke between themselves. Jean Perraton

We love to eat Maureen's lardy cake

Ingredients

Plain bread dough

Granulated sugar

Currants

Lard

Mixed spice

I first ate lardy cake in Wiltshire in 1944. As a three-year-old evacuee, I would walk up the lanes with the farmer's wife, to buy "three penn'orth of lardy cake and a bunch of everlasting flowers". I don't remember why the two were bought together, only that they were. We would watch the baker pull hot loaves out of the green tiled oven. The lardy cake was brown and shiny, a sweet treat in the days when cakes were a rare luxury.

Years later, in Reading, I rediscovered lardy cake. My teenage Saturdays were fuelled by slabs of the sticky, greasy dough, full of currents and crusted with caramelised sugar. Sometimes I split them and added a filling of sliced apple.

More years later, with a hungry family to feed, and time to make my own bread I found a recipe for lardy cake. It was wonderful to bite into that warm, sweet and satisfying slab.

Now I buy it from my local baker. Not as good as I used to make, but still irresistible. My excuse is that I need to avoid dairy products so cream cakes are out, and I have to have something "naughty but nice".

The quantities you use depend on how sweet, sticky, greasy and spicy you like to make it. Roll out the dough to form a rectangle. Spread two thirds of it with lard, then sprinkle on sugar, currants and spice. Fold the plain third over, then the other, and roll out. Repeat this several times, until the dough is layered many times. Leave it to rise again, then bake in a hot oven until well cooked, and the fat and sugar have melted and baked to a gooey caramel. Maureen Armstrong

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